There was a time where the phrase “made in the USA” was a badge of quality and pride. While I am not aware of any one particular event or reason why, but from my view of things that badge seems to have been set aside.
With events like the world cup, American principles are once again challenged and tested in our dedication to quality. The last world cup game for the United States showed a quality of the American spirit that is admirable and repeatable; to keep on fighting to the end regardless of how many times we may fail.
Does quality still matter? The success of Wal-Mart and e-bay would lead a person to conclude that price, not quality, is more important to the majority of consumers.
Fast food is a constant diet where the dedication to a well constructed quality meal is suffocated by other time consuming priorities.
So I wonder, has the pride of quality phrase “Made in the USA” faded because our nation has faded from a dedication to quality? Or does the USA still stand as a sign of quality?
As fervent a lover of America as I am, my response to this may surprise you. To me, quality is quality, regardless of where it is made. I do not believe in economic protectionism.
ReplyDeleteI have no problem buying foreign goods if the product that I want is from somewhere else. People always focus on the American worker in the sense of manufacturing, but it inst always that simple. Sure if I buy an imported item manufactured overseas that means that an American factory is not producing it, but Americans are running the ships that transport it here, warehouses are staffed by Americans that collect and redistribute the product, truckers and railroaders that pull it etc.
In my State of Washington, one in three jobs here are directly tied to international trade, so that if everyone decides to buy widgets only made in the upper midwest and not overseas, my economy would be devastated.
But for me it is a sense of fair play - I cannot expect the world to be a market for our goods if I would not be okay with the same being true here. I do want the world to be a market for US goods, so it must go both ways. That being said, we can use sanction against foreign products coming to market here as a bargaining chip before resorting to military actions as well.
Indeed the establishment of commerce with other nations can be a powerful tool to propagate peace.
As far a quality versus quatity goes, it should always remain as a choice of the end consumer. You can buy really crappy or high end stuff made both domestically and internationally. It should be all about what a consumer wants. My American pride comes from freedom of choice, such that if the people decide that quantity is what they want, the market offers them exactly that.
Now for me, I like quality in most things (some things are fine in quantity), but that is my choice. If that quality thing happens to be made here, then yes, I will admit to extra pride and satisfaction in that. But I dont believe that should be something we legislate into existance. American products should thrive in the market because they are what people want, not because we have tarriffed its competition away. That stifles innovation.
If you've been inside a major US corporation in the last 10 years, you know that quality is simply not a concern. The shareholders, meaning the big wall street banks who manage the pension funds of those who still have pensions, want profits and ever higher share prices and they don't care how it's done. Quality is expensive and labor intensive and so anyone who considers it important is a loser who will never get into top management.
ReplyDeletePahoran wants fair play and innovation and he thinks competition will bring it, and to some extent he's right. However, there is no business that seeks competition. Every business seeks to eliminate their competition. We need fair play alright, but fair play for the citizens of America, not a playing field tilted in favor of large multinational corporations who don't give a damn about quality, their employees, their country, the environment, the communities where they live and work, or anything else other than the almighty dollar.
Want quality, cut the corporations down to size, get them out of our political system and make them play by the same rules the rest of us have to play by.
No we dont want to cut corporations "down to size". Who are you t meddle in someone else's private property?
ReplyDeleteCharles D one of my most fundamental issues with the political doctrines of socialism is that your ilk do not tend to be safeguards of private property rights, you dont hold that as one the most core principles for civilization, prosperity and human happiness.
I am very lower middle clas economically. That being said, I dont hate the wealthy, nor do I think I have any kind of right to their stuff. That is wrong. What I do feel is an aspiration to emulate what they have done to put themselves in that economic status. Once there, the ability to be as generous or selfish as I want is mine. Not yours. Not some beurocracy that would commit theft by committee and legislate it away from me.
The waelthy are a minority and deserve protection in their belongings and persons as much as anyone else. That is the genius of American thought.
If you dont like whaty a corporation sells, dont buy it. Buy something else. Participate in cottage and backyard industry. Do-it-yourself, start soemthin new. Let us now committ to staying out of the way of business as much as possible though, legally.
Here are four fundamental freedoms that when we abridge, we find misery and poverty arising on a large scale:
Freedom to Buy
Freedom to Sell
Freedom to Try
Freedom to Fail
We cannot create a nerf padded society where big nanny "protects" us from ourselves on everything. Certain safeguards are needed to be sure, but we ALREADY have WAY too many, and it is hurting us.
I feel that to demonize corporations are to demean our nations citizens. This is valid for two reasons, corporations are obviously run by human beings (albeit not always ideal human beings). Second, and more significant, because corporations sell what we buy. If we did not support corporations with our dollars they wouldn't function that way.
ReplyDeleteIf America wants quality then they will buy it. If they don't, we will see mediocrity in the marketplace abound. We can blame corporations all we want but we probably all purchase products and obtain home loans from these corporations. If we don't want to support these big bad corporations, then we shouldn't. But we do. I guess that is why I wonder if America really is concerned with quality anymore, or if we as a nation have forgotten the value that comes from quality, not price.
So I don't think that we should blame corporations anymore than we should blame ourselves. I agree with Pahoran in the sense that there is nothing inherent in the corporation that is the problem. Anyone with 60 bucks and an address can start a corporation. You don't have to sell your soul as part of that. So in that sense, Charles, I feel your generalization is a gross oversimplification and the standard scapegoat for liberals/socialists.
Charles your comment about businesses not wanting competition is "silly." Business can thrive with honest competition. It seems that someone who wanted no competition would love socialism. Once they decide what their business is and get it started people have to buy from them or the government will do it for them. How would socialism actually create competition?
ReplyDeleteCharles I agree with you to the extent that you say no business wants competiton and that they seek to eliminate their competition. That is not to say that business owners dont believe in free enterprise, they just want to dominate their market. Understandable. A free market makes competition possible however, wheras socialism creates all kinds of monopolies where there need not be any.
ReplyDeleteSome monopolies are inevitable in certain endeavors such as roads, water piping systems and utility transmission lines due to economies of scale and cost of entry into the market, but then I believe government has a role to control pricing there. That is only a very small percentage of industry and commerce however.
I agre with Crayon Face that business does indeed thrive in the heat of honest competition. It is amazing what happens when a business has even one competitor, and the magic happens when they have at least two.
Another reason price may be more important to many consumers in the US than quality is because of the decline in the value of the dollar. When money keeps becoming worth less and less, we have to make it stretch.
ReplyDeleteWhat about corporations whose product is purchased by the government only? I happen to work for a DoD contractor, and from what I have seen I am completely disgusted. It appears to me that the DoD contracting companies are bleeding the government dry and literally milking them for all they're worth. They overcharge and underdeliver....why?.... well it appears because they can get away with it. I have no way of proving this, but I have a hunch that these contracting companies are what's prolonging the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan...if not solely, they are at least a factor. I believe they hire lobbyists to whisper in Congress' ears that if they can create a bit of a quagmire or slow progress down, then these companies will give them kickbacks because they in turn keep riding the gravy train.
ReplyDeleteGreat White Hope,
ReplyDeleteBeing in the military and seeing how civilian contracts are handed out, my observations are similar to yours. The problem I have seen doesnt have root with the DOD however, it has root in all federal contract policy.
For example, if I contract is bid to remodel a workout facility and the bid allows for 180 paid days to do so, the contractor will never take less than the full time to do it. Why? He would cheat himself out of pay since there is no financial incentive for finishing early. There is also no financial incentive to finish under budget. It could be so different, federal procurement and contract laws are completely jacked up. The issue is so much larger than DOD, they arae simple an arm of a larger leviathan of fiscal mismanagement and waste. I have a brother that works for a different arm of the federal government and he has observed the exact same issues there too.
One more thing, youm will notice federal government agencies try to find creative ways to spend every last dollar alloted to them in a budget, because if they dont they get penalized with a smaller one the next year. It is insane, and people wonder why budgets rise every year.
Yet one more reason to add to the list of why federal government programs need to be specifically enumerated constitutionally in their scope and everything else adminstered somewhere else public or private.
Oh I wholeheartedly agree with you Pahoran. I've mentioned I'm in the military as well. And now I've seen both sides of the DoD coin, both as a military member and as a civilian contractor. The only reason I was bagging on the DoD is because they tend to be the federal department with the most amount of money allocated. The DoD budget is far beyond the scope of any other dep of the federal government. But yeah, there are major problems, but it all goes back to the main issue and that is the lack of integrity due to the moral decay of our society. It's just one more indication as is the societal acceptance of homosexuality and every other moral degradation that when parents no longer parent, children grow up without the tools to build a successful life and have an understanding of right and wrong which ultimately leads to the crumble of societies and nations. That is why Benson... I think it was Benson who basically said that no success can compensate for failure in the home. It's true, and no matter what generals and presidents accomplish, they can't compare with good mothering.
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